Krvavec

Ljubljana's ski resort: slopes between 1,450 and 1,971 m half an hour from the capital, and mountain-bike pastures in summer.

The capital's ski resort

Visible from Ljubljana on a clear day, Krvavec has been the capital's home mountain since the 1950s: a half-hour drive, a gondola ride up from Cerklje, and you are skiing between 1,450 and 1,971 metres above the plain. It is also one of Europe's closest ski areas to an international airport — Ljubljana airport lies directly below, and landing in the morning to ski by noon is entirely feasible.

Skiing above a sea of clouds

The ski area lines up around thirty kilometres of slopes for all levels across a broad high plateau: wide family-friendly boulevards in Tiha dolina, steeper walls below the Zvoh summit, a snowpark, a sledding run and waymarked snowshoe outings. The bonus show is meteorological: in winter, while the Ljubljana basin stews under fog, Krvavec pokes out into full sunshine above a sea of clouds, with the Kamnik-Savinja Alps on the horizon and Triglav in the distance. Thanks to the altitude, the season usually runs from December to early spring.

Summer: pastures, bikes and paragliders

Snow-free, Krvavec changes trades. The plateau reverts to high pasture — herds, shepherd huts and the little Chapel of Mary of the Snows at Jezerca —, the gondola carries mountain bikes up to the bike park trails, and panoramic paths lead to the Zvoh summit. On the Ambrož pod Krvavcem side, paragliders launch out over the Ljubljana plain: one of the country's best-known free-flight sites, active summer and winter.

Krvavec or Velika Planina?

The two plateaus face each other across the same valley and complement rather than compete: Krvavec is a proper resort — lifts, slopes, bike park — while Velika Planina is a preserved herdsmen's village you visit for the alpine atmosphere and trnič cheese. Skiing and thrills on one side, pastoral immersion on the other — a 20-minute drive apart.

Getting there

Allow 30 minutes from Ljubljana or 15 from Kranj to the gondola base station above Cerklje na Gorenjskem — easy to combine with Kamnik or Škofja Loka in a day. In winter, leave early at weekends: the whole of Ljubljana has the same idea.

Photo: U5K0 — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.